Microsoft AI CEO, Mustafa Suleyman, On the Most Powerful, Exponential Technology in Human History: Can We Harness its Revolutionary Potential for Medicine and Energy Without Triggering Social Upheaval, Job Displacement, and Autonomous Global Control?

**Mustafa Suleyman** (0:00)
This is the most powerful technology we've ever invented, and it is growing exponentially quickly. That is not science fiction.

**Mayim Bialik** (0:07)
We don't know where to use it, where not to use it, do we tell our children to use it?

**Mustafa Suleyman** (0:10)
There are hundreds of millions of people a day using these tools for every single use case you can imagine. It feels like we're at the infancy, but it is also the most magical experience I've ever seen. It is unbelievable.

**Mayim Bialik** (0:25)
Mustafa Suleyman, CEO of Microsoft AI, has spent decades building the most powerful technology in human history.

**Mustafa Suleyman** (0:33)
The number one most popular use case is companionship and therapy. Should I move country and get this new job? Should I break up with my boyfriend? How do I make up with my mom?

**Mayim Bialik** (0:44)
What does that mean to you as a human? What some would say is an evolution in human connection and some sad devolving of our ability to relate.

**Mustafa Suleyman** (0:54)
We all need a place where we can ask a stupid question repeatedly in a private way without feeling embarrassed.

**Jonathan Cohen** (1:01)
There is a massive upheaval coming that people don't really understand.

**Mustafa Suleyman** (1:05)
Yes, it will be able to use a computer. It can use Excel, use PowerPoint, and it will write queries, that kind of like white-collar labor.

**Jonathan Cohen** (1:12)
Should we be bracing for mass displacement?

**Mayim Bialik** (1:15)
What should parents be telling their kids?

**Mustafa Suleyman** (1:18)
The next century of human existence and well-being is going to be determined by our collective ability to self-govern something that is way more powerful than us.

**Mayim Bialik** (1:33)
Hi, I'm Mayim Bialik.

**Jonathan Cohen** (1:34)
And I'm Jonathan Cohen.

**Mayim Bialik** (1:35)
And welcome to our breakdown. No big deal, but today we're going to be speaking about the most critically important change in human history that we will experience in our lifetime. We have the privilege of speaking to the CEO of Microsoft AI, Mustafa Suleyman, a true pioneer of modern AI. He's the co-founder of DeepMind. He helped launch that in 2010 And that was acquired by Google and thus became one of the most consequential AI labs in history. He was there for a decade. And in that time achieved two massive breakthroughs to prove to everyone that this was not just a gimmick. Their system AlphaGo was able to defeat the world champion of Go, a game that was previously considered to be too complex for computers to master. And second, they created AlphaFold, an AI that solved a 50 year old at least challenge of protein folding. And that has now actually revolutionized drug discovery and biology. And that's particularly interesting to me who studied this in biology as one of the great puzzles of our time. He has spent over a decade not just building these systems, but making sure that they can be applied for things like reducing energy consumption in data centers and also improving health care with NHS. And he sits now as the CEO of Microsoft AI. And we're going to be talking about what it means to be living in a world that is in the middle of a reckoning with a technology that you may not like, you may not be using, you may not know that you're using, but has the potential to change everything we know about medicine, government, finance, energy.
This conversation is one where we get to literally ask the mind behind what is part of now all of our minds.
What are the risks to this adventure that we are all on?
Do the benefits outweigh the risks? Are there things that we can do to better understand the framework that we are all existing in? And what does it mean for things like jobs? What do we tell our kids about what is valuable? What do we think is valuable? In addition, we are going to talk about the single most significant use of AI all over the world, which is a challenge to all of our human evolution. This shocked me and is actually, I think, one of the most important things we are going to talk about today.

**Jonathan Cohen** (4:17)
Mustafa also discusses, what should we be telling our children to focus on? At one point, we told our kids they should be coders. He has very specific advice for each one of us.
We know that the world is changing. It's not if, it's when and how fast, and how do we prepare.

**Mayim Bialik** (4:38)
In addition, we are going to focus on his book, The Coming Wave, which is technology, power, and the 21st century's greatest dilemma. He is really an incredible thinker, and also we will talk about spirituality and where his personal ethics come into his role in the development and implementation of AI. His book, The Coming Wave, is a powerful warning from someone who literally has been inside of the engine room of AI progress. We're so, so excited to get to welcome Mustafa Suleyman to The Breakdown. Break it down.